Yarrow Valley Country Park

We had time for a short visit to Yarrow Valley Park, a very extensive nature reserve in Chorley before the light went completely. With all the recent rain, the weir and river were very impressive and occupied us from some time. There are several lakes there as well as beautiful woodland.

Salford Quays in the Rain

It took us much longer than we hoped to drive from Cambridge to Salford because of the very wet roads so it was dark by the time we had eaten and set off to explore. Here a few images taken under my umbrella of the beautiful night vistas here.

Gamlingay Wood Carpetted with Fungi

Gamlingay Woods are so full of fungi at the moment that it is difficult to know which ones to choose to photograph. Here a selection taken with a tilt and shift lens.

Cambridge - Autumn on Hold

There is not much in the way of autumn colours in Cambridge yet - the Plane trees and ornamental trees in the Sidgewick site have turned golden but most other species are only showing patches of turned leaves (except the Horse Chestnuts, which have been badly affected by leaf-mining beetles again this year).

Santon Downham 2 - Playing with Light and Focus Stacking

As well as photographing the different types of fungi in Thetford Forest on Sunday, I also spent time doing different light set ups with a continuous LED light source sometimes with a magenta filter. The first image is of the Pine Cone Ttoadstool - around 3mm maximum cap size growing out of cones with the light behind to illuminate the cap. I tried to get backlit spore release from the Puff Balls but this definitely needs more experimentation. The last two images are focus stacks of the Sulphur Tuft toadstool. The first is a stack of 51 images and shows too much depth of field. I suspected this at the time by looking at the last image in the series so took a second stack of 31 images which brings most of the clump into focus but still separates from background (Fuji bracket handheld, Zerene stacker).